songs

MOTHERS, DAUGHTER, WIVES
by Judy Small
The first time it was fathers,
The last time it was sons
And in between your husbands
Marched away with drums and guns.
And you never thought to question.
You just went on with your lives.
Cause all they taught you who to be,
Was mothers, daughters, wives.
You can only just remember
The tears your mother shed
As they sat and read their papers
Through the lists and lists of dead.
And the gold frames held the photographs
That mothers kissed each night.
And the door frames held the shocked
And silent strangers from the fight.
It was twenty-one years later,
With children of your own.
The trumpets sounded once again,
And the soldier boys were gone.
And you drove their trucks and made their guns
And tended to their wounds.
And at night you kissed their photographs
And prayed for safe returns.
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